Who and who

Who and its derivatives present a less complex scenario than what. Most interrogative uses are the same in Shakespearian as in modern English, the chief difference being the sense of ‘whoever’ illustrated below. Whoever itself differs only in the use of a contracted form, whoe’er, a contraction also seen in whosoe’er. Grammatical usage of who shows two other points of difference from modern English. There is wider use of this form after a preposition, where standard English today would

use whom: for example, Edgar asks ‘To who?’ (KL V.iii.246) and Hamlet ‘Between who?’ (Ham II.ii.195). And the semantic range of who is wider, including abstract concepts, objects, and animals: among the entities that are qualified as ‘who’ are the world, ‘who of itself is peised well’ (KJ II.i.575); a golden casket, ‘who this inscription bears’ (MV II.vii.4); a drop of water, ‘Who, falling there to find his fellow forth’ (CE I.ii.37); and a lion, ‘Who glazed upon me’ (JC I.iii.21).